Call for a Social Policy Analyst

Background

“Lebanon has the 3rd highest debt to GDP ratio” in the world (Lebanon’s Economic Vision). This is “driven by successive budget deficits” (Lebanon’s Economic Vision) due to extraneous spending. Notably, in 2018, Lebanon spent over 46% of its revenues on public wages (Lebanon’s Economic Vision), signifying the vast amount of servants employed by the state. Despite their significant number however, many of Lebanon’s civil servants do not seem to play a significant role in serving the public interest. Instead, Lebanon’s bureaucratic structure seems to be fabricated to satiate personal and political greed, rather than governmental needs, and thus, one homogeneous employment structure does not exist. This is to say that public officials are hired miscellaneously (usually as contractuals) to advance the agendas of clientelistic networks and are no longer hired based on merit and qualification to serve the public good. This illegal employment of less qualified officials not only helps incur higher paying government wages, but also brings forth further unethical behavior by ministries and public servants, such as nepotism, bribery, and other forms of corruption.

Moreover, a lack of one coherent payroll for public officials allows for ministries and other public institutions to work in an unchecked environment without fiscal or legal transparency. This is to say that as there is no one institution to handle all fiscal responsibilities that comes with public employment, allowing any ministry in Lebanon to partake in budgetary corruption, where actual spending may differ from original expenditure plans. This then decreases the public’s confidence in the rule of law and undermines the government’s legitimacy. It is important to note here that there are also many public officials within clientelistic networks that work in inactive agencies, such as state transportation and postal departments, that thus, hold political sinecures allotted millions of dollars in designated budget every year.

Without competent employees, ministries are then left to hire external consultants for much of their administrative and technical work, allowing them to also sidestep providing expensive benefits to what would have been fixed-term employees. Notably, however, even external consultants and firms are subject to measures of clientelism. As governments succeed one another, and new ministers from different political parties are appointed, there is a higher turnover of employees and consultants. This not only then leads to a discontinuity in public services, research, and strategy, but also undermines functions of accountability. All of the above then construes the relationship between the government and its public servants.
 

Duties and Responsibilities:

The Policy Paper will revolve around the relationship between the Lebanese government and its public employees, answering questions related to the formal and informal mechanisms of public sector structuring, employment, accountability measures, etc..

The policy paper should notably tackle the following main points:

• The government’s understanding\ strategy of public positions and officials (such the parallel administration after the Taif agreement- UNDP support office in each ministry….)
• The structure of the public sector, if it exists, and its efficiency
• List of all public administration institutions (ministries, independent departments, military institutions, judicial system, Council’s)  
• Formal and informal employment policies for public positions, specifically governmental administration
• Abolishment policy, or lack thereof, of inactive or discontinued government agencies
• The salary scale for contractual workers, and how this scale is determined
• Termination policy, or lack thereof, for contractual workers
• The discontinuation and fragmentation of governmental agendas due to the turnover of public positions
• Policy recommendations aimed to the state
   

Under the supervision of the Programme Manager and Director, the Policy Analyst’s main tasks include:

• Organize and conduct qualitative research such as key informant interviews, focus groups, and literature reviews
• Developing and submitting an interview guide and interviewee list for review prior to interviews, integrating feedback prior to conducting interviews
• Submit draft policy paper in Arabic and review feedback within 1 week of receiving it (MAAN will have 10 work days to review the paper)
• Prepare, transcript, and submit all recorded, spoken, or written interview materials from interviews undertaken for the policy paper
• Maintain research files and related documentation
• Maintain an ongoing line of communication with the Programme Manager and Director via email, phone, meeting, etc, regarding paper progress and challenges
   

Qualifications

• Masters degree in economics, public policy, political science, international development, or related field.
• Over five years of experience in qualitative and/or quantitative research and reporting.
• Excellent knowledge of the Lebanese political and socio-economic landscape
• Excellent knowledge of Microsoft Office and email
• Fluency in Arabic and high-level proficiency in English (reading, writing and speaking)
• Ability to be flexible in working hours
• Ability to respect and maintain confidentiality
• Excellent verbal, written, analytical, and organizational skills.